Meng Chang was the winner of the power struggle between the Later Shu monarchs and the emperor, and firmly controlled the imperial power, so what about the Great Shu Empire under Meng Chang's rule?
Although Meng Chang took the position of chong age and did not have the hardships of entrepreneurship, he also had a sense of crisis. The death of the former Shu dynasty left a deep memory for the Meng father and son, and after Meng Chang took the throne, "the king of the forbidden king Yan Yan was arrogant and arrogant, and diligently sought treatment." Although the removal of Old Ministers such as Li Renhan was to consolidate imperial power, the rectification of the official rule was also the meaning of the title.
In the fourth year of the Later Shu Dynasty (941), Meng Chang, who had not yet fully controlled the power, personally drafted the "Precepts" and issued the Shu State County Office:
He remembered the naked son, ate the night clothes, entrusted the commander of the order, and raised An Sui. There are three differences in politics, the Tao is in the seven silks, the chicken is the reason, and the calf is the rule. Wide and fierce, customs can be moved, no order to invade, no sores. The people are easy to abuse, the heavens are difficult to deceive, the public opinion is meritorious, and the military state is the capital. The reward of the Lord of Decay, which is not overdue, erlu, the people anoint the people. To be a parent, to be unkind, to be a precept, to meditate deeply.
After the fall of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, the taizu of the Song Dynasty, intercepted four sentences of Meng Chang's "Precepts": "Erqi Erlu, the people are anointed, the people are easy to abuse, and the heavens are difficult to deceive", as the "Precept Stone Inscription", promulgated the world, so that the county carved stone in front of the public hall seat. From the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the prefectures and counties of the past dynasties carved these four sentences of "official proverbs" as the precepts of local officials.
Meng Zhixiang was born in heshuo wuren, and also served in the Shatuo Li clique, but did not advocate martial politics, "Meng's heel has Shu Han, and takes literature as a matter." When Meng Zhixiang first took control of Shuzhong, he was in a situation where "the group of thieves was still unresolved", and he was still able to "issue an order of leniency and start with the people". Meng Chang himself was "able to write articles, good exposition, know the rise and fall, and have poetic talents", creating a good situation of "Wenzhi" in Later Shu.
Ring stone inscription
The Song Dynasty Lü Tao's "Records of the Classics of The Chronicle of the History" once said, "The grand crown of Shu learning is the world and the infinity of the world, and it has three: one is the stone chamber of Wen Weng, the second is the ceremonial hall of Gao Gong, and the third is the Nine Classics of the stone wall." "The good governance of Hongwen during Meng Chang's reign in Shu was indispensable. Although he advocated Wenzhi, Meng Chang was highly vigilant against the so-called "floating and thin" style of writing, but he was elegant in taste, did not like to be frivolous, and consciously emphasized the Confucian value position of Later Shu Wenzhi. Former Shu Hou lord Wang Yan "is particularly cool and beautiful words", while Meng Chang "everything is based on reason".
Under the guidance of Meng Chang's civil rule policy with Confucian value stance, Later Shu presented a cultural prosperity rarely seen since the late Tang Dynasty, which was an outlier in the chaotic world of the five generations. After the Song Dynasty destroyed the southern kingdoms, it received books from all over the world, "At the beginning of Jianlong, the three libraries only collected more than 12,000 volumes, and the Ping kingdoms, all of which collected their pictures, but Shu and Jiangnan were the most, and the Shu shu books were 13,000 volumes, and the Jiangnan books were more than 20,000 volumes." If there were no shu state and southern Tang dynasty to preserve the Chinese cultural context, how could the Wufu Empire of the Zhao and Song Dynasties have created a civil rule of more than three hundred years?
As an emperor, Meng Chang also paid attention to economic development and persuaded nongsang. In December of the first year of Mingde (934), Meng Chang issued an edict to persuade the farmers, "Assassinate Shi County, its business in and out of Quemo, Laolai Sannong, Wangxing Dun Farming, Zhan Pu persuasion." Such edicts to persuade farmers were promulgated many times during Meng Chang's reign, which shows the importance attached to agriculture. Like many southern regimes at that time, Meng's Attitude toward commerce was relaxed, and in the seventh year of guangzheng, Meng Chang killed the zaichen Zhang Ye, one of the charges was "using its system to abuse and levy commercial taxes", "light and easy, trade and leniency" brought economic prosperity to Houshu, "Shuzhong Jiu'an, Dou rice and three coins, the children of the capital did not know the seedlings of wheat, gold coins were abundant, string and pipe songs were recited in Lu Lane, and the feast society was connected day and night", "The people of Shu were rich, and the rivers were all created in pavilions and rivers." All people women, allure play, pearl green Qiluo, famous flowers and fragrant rich forest column. ”
The prosperity of Shuzhong eventually ended with the armed intervention of the Northern Dynasty. In the last years of the Later Tang Dynasty, the Later Shu state was founded and has been at peace with the Central Plains. After the establishment of the Later Jin Dynasty, in the second year of Tianfu (4th year of Later Shu Mingde, 937), The Jin Emperor Shi Jingyao "sent an envoy to Shu to take the throne and marry well; Book, with enemy state etiquette", the two countries reciprocal exchanges.
Meng Chang in film and television dramas
In the twelfth year of Tianfu (the tenth year of the Later Shu Guangzheng, 947), the Khitan went south to destroy the Later Jin, and Hedong Jiedu made Liu Zhiyuan "take advantage of the chaos and take the artifact", and the situation in the Central Plains was in chaos. Later Jin Xiongwu's army made He Jian submit the three prefectures of Qin, Cheng, and Jie to Hou Shu, and Meng Chang also sent the general Sun Hanshao to attack Fengzhou and occupy the land of the four prefectures, in fact restoring the largest territory of Former Shu. In the Later Shu Dynasty near Guanzhong, the ambitious Meng Chang "wanted to spy on Guanzhong very sharply", but several times he did not have the upper hand in several battles with The Later Han.
The rise of the following week upset the balance of strategic confrontation. In the second year of Later Zhou Xiande (18th year of Later Shu Guangzheng, 955), Chai Rong, who had just won the victory of Gaoping, sent an army to attack Shu. The war lasted for more than a year, and finally the Later Shu was defeated, and "Qin, Cheng, Jie, and Feng re-entered the Zhou." Later Zhou's aggressive strategic offensive forced Meng Chang to "dispatch emissaries to the Southern Tang and Eastern Han Dynasties to zhang the situation."
In Later Zhou's strategy for unifying the world, Later Shu was not the first target to be annexed, so there was no war between Zhou and Shu in the lifetime of Emperor Shizong of Zhou. After the Zhao Song Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty, the unification strategy of "first the south and then the north" was formulated, and Zhao Kuangyin believed that "since the five generations of China, the army has been in a series of disasters, and the treasure is empty, it must first take Bashu, followed by Guangnan and Jiangnan, that is, the wealth of the country", and the wealth of Shuzhong has become the coveted target of the Zhao regime.
After the Song Dynasty decided on Jing and Chu without a war, the next step was Hou Shu. Meng Chang originally planned to submit to the Song court, but was "fixed" by Wang Zhaoyuan, a privy councillor who had always regarded himself as Kong Ming, and sent emissaries to send a letter to join the Northern Han Dynasty in the Central Plains, forming a pinch attack on the Song. Unexpectedly, the wax pill book of the secret alliance was presented to Zhao Kuangyin by Zhao Yantao. This undoubtedly gave the Song court a reason to use force, and Zhao Kuangyin smiled: "The west is famous." ”
In November of the second year of the Northern Song Dynasty (the twenty-seventh year of the Later Shu Guangzheng and 964), Zhao Kuangyin commanded Shu, 50,000 Song troops, and soldiers attacked Shu in two ways: Wang Quanbin and Cui Yanjin were the commanders of the North Road, from Fengzhou along the Jialing River; Liu Guangqi and Cao Bin were the East Road, and from Guizhou to the river. The process of the war was not complicated, and the Shu army had almost no strength to resist.
In the whole war, after the defeat of the Shu army, either walking or descending, only the defender of Kuizhou Prefecture, Gao Yanyi, "refused to defend the city of Closed Tooth" after the defeat, did not go or surrendered, and finally "self-immolated to death". When the Song army approached Chengdu, the veteran general Shi Ying advised Meng Chang to "gather troops to defend ourselves." Meng Chang was not optimistic about the soldiers in Shuzhong and sighed, "I and the ancestors have been raising food in warm clothes for forty years, once they are facing an enemy, they can't put an arrow in the east direction for me, although they want to strengthen the wall, who is evil with my guardians!" ”
In the first month of the third year of Qiande (the twenty-eighth year of the Later Shu Guangzheng and 965), Meng Chang ordered the chancellor Li Hao to draft a demotion table, because Li Hao was a Hanlin scholar in the former Shu Dynasty, and former Shu was demoted to later Tang, and the demotion table was also proposed by Li Hao, so some people ridiculed it as "the Li family of the Shixiu descending table". The Song army destroyed Shu for only sixty-six days.
Former Shu and Later Shu
After Meng Chang surrendered to the Song Dynasty, "the Hui clan returned to the dynasty and descended from the Gorge River", and was taken to Beijing, and after entering the dynasty, he was awarded the titles of Kaifu Yi Tongsan Division, Inspector Taishi and Zhongshu Ling, and Duke of Qin, and was given the title of First Jingshi and rewarded with a generous reward. However, seven days later, Meng Chang died unexpectedly, at the age of forty-seven. The cause of Meng Chang's death is not explained in the history books of the Song Dynasty, but the Qing Dynasty Wu Renchen's "Spring and Autumn of the Ten Kingdoms" is attached in the form of a commentary on Meng Chang's posthumous list, which includes "Not an occasional rash, a deep feeling, but His Majesty Meng's wisdom, a deep thought, a special depth, a national doctor and recommended to him, than Ji slightly smelled of the mishaps, when will he gradually see death?" This means that after Meng Chang returned to the Song Dynasty, he occasionally contracted diseases, and after Zhao Kuangyin sent a traditional chinese doctor to treat him, he died violently. In this way, Meng Chang's death was inseparable from the Song Court, and it was most likely that he was killed by Zhao Kuangyin!
Why did Zhao Song want to kill Meng Chang? It is reasonable to say that at that time, the Song Dynasty only conquered Jing, Chu, and Hou Shu, and killed a submissive lord, which would lose the image of Zhao's "showing faith and huairou", which was not conducive to the unification strategy. However, specific to Hou Shu, the situation is different. As the "lord of the forty years of partial hegemony" in Shudi, Meng Chang won the hearts of the people of Shudi. When Meng Chang left Shu and returned to the Song Dynasty, Shudi "all the people embraced the Tao, wept and moved, and Chang covered his face with a song and wept." From Erjiang to Meizhou, there are hundreds of people mourning along the road", the reason is that Meng Chang "governs Shu with grace", "persuades farmers to pay for the punishment, zhaoxing culture and education, diligently seeks treatment, and rests with the people".
In contrast, in the process of conquering the Shu kingdom, the Song army showed tyranny and barbarism. After Wang Quanbin and other Song generals led their troops into Shu, military discipline was corrupted and atrocities continued, and after entering Chengdu, they "killed 27,000 Shu soldiers" in one day, and there was even a tragic atrocity of "a colonel cutting off the milk of the people's wives and killing them." After Wang Quanbin and other Song generals entered Shu, they "feasted and drank day and night, did not sympathize with the military," and "fished and plundered their subordinates, and the Shu people suffered." Even Zhao Kuangyin rebuked him for "killing and demoting soldiers, opening public funds without authorization, robbing women, and collecting goods and wealth." The atrocities of the Song army aroused the anger of the Shu people, "the Shu army was indignant, and everyone was confused." In this way, the living Meng Chang is very likely to become the banner of the anti-Song movement in Shuzhong. In the fourth year (993) of The rebellion of Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun in the fourth year (993) of Emperor Taizong of Song, under the banner of the Meng clan, "the people of Shu were confused and followed it." It shows that Meng Chang has won the hearts of the people in Shuzhong and has an extremely far-reaching influence.
Zhao Kuangyin
However, in the history books of later generations, Meng Chang is also an image of a dimwitted monarch who indulges in wine and absurdity, why is this? The reason is very simple, that is, the Song people deliberately slandered and vilified. In the writings of the Song Dynasty, Meng Chang's so-called "Seven Treasures Drowning Instrument" is often mentioned, for example, Ouyang Xiu's "New Five Dynasties History of the Later Shu Family" says that Later Shu "is a luxury for the affairs of the monarch and the subject to entertain himself, and as for the drowning device, it is all decorated with seven treasures". Although the New History of the Five Dynasties is not an official history book, it has not been officially praised by the Song court and can represent the official position. It is very strange that Xue Juzheng's "History of the Old Five Dynasties", which predates Ou Shi, does not mention a word about this matter, which shows that the "Seven Treasure Drowning Device" is a false history created by the Song people.
The Song Dynasty Shu scholar Zhang Tangying's "Shu Han Zhuo And Later Shu Hou Lord" praised Meng Chang as "young and intelligent, self-proclaimed, quite diligent in government, not shrugging off the border, and domestic Fu'an". The "Tale of the Five Kingdoms" praised Meng Chang for being "quite kind and frugal, sleeping only violet tents, green silk draperies, no splendid embroidery, all kinds of ornaments are usually included, only copper-clad vermilion lacquer small reeds", where is there an arrogant and lascivious appearance?
In order to eliminate the influence of Meng Chang, the Song people not only killed him, but also uglyed him into an absurd and shameless emperor in the historical narrative, thus obscuring the historical truth.